Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We have been hearing all week about the marriage postal survey and how the government is very confident, as the Prime Minister himself vowed, that this would be a very respectful debate and that people deserve their say. For the vast majority of people, this will be a respectful debate—they will make their contribution, if they make a contribution at all, and they will do it respectfully. I've got to say the way this postal survey has licensed the fringes of the commentariat and the meanest elements of the Australian community to say some quite shocking things is already becoming apparent. We had Bronwyn Bishop relating marriage equality to bestiality, polygamy and killing disabled children, we had Fred Nile calling homosexuals an abomination and we had Lyle Shelton describing the children of rainbow families as a new stolen generation.

The subjects of these comments are deeply hurt and offended. I spoke to Leila from Leichhardt recently. She was trolled on Twitter, with a photo of her and her partner with their four-year-old daughter being posted online and Leila and her partner being called paedophiles because they are two mums with a daughter. Adam and his fiance, from Sydney, wrote to the Prime Minister saying:

… I’ve spent my whole life trying to make myself good enough, strong enough, equal to those that I’ve been told I’m not equal to.

…   …   …

I thought that fight was over for me …

Constituents of mine, Tim and Shawn, who live in Waterloo, have had 'fag' scratched onto the front of their house. There are so many examples like this, and the reason is this absolutely unnecessary $122 million survey. (Time expired)

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